DIY happiness

How to organise your creative ideas

Most of the time, I am an organised and neat person. I like to keep everything tidy and clean. Except, apparently, when it comes to my creative studio. No idea why, but it is always a mess. I have a visual memory, meaning that I will put an object or a piece of paper on my desk, just to remember that there is a creative project connected to it. Do you have that too? Sometimes, I even put an object on the floor next to my bed, so that I will wake up in the morning and remember to do a specific task.

This method doesn’t feel very stimulating to me when it comes to my creative space. I don’t like having to move around a ton of stuff before I can start creating. So I came up with a new plan to organise my creative space and I started by putting all of my ideas in ONE place instead of scattered all over my desk.

Ok, here are some pictures of my desk before the clean up. I’m still working on cleaning up everything, so no “After” pictures for now. However, I will share my new organisation plan that is totally awesome (so far).

So okay, not fabulous. Books from the library, a dvd, paper that I find beautiful, a note-book, markers, scissors, air dry clay, a binder, magazines – you name it, it’s there.

SO. I bought a binder and inserts that are used for making photo albums and I started putting everything together. It is actually kind of like scrapbooking. I put all of the images and objects that I find stimulating and interesting in one album.

These are the inserts I used. I bought them here and they come in packages of ten inserts. Each package costs 4.50€ and you can insert 120 images in total.

When I just started writing my blog, I was noting all of my creative ideas and topics for blog posts in a big notebook, but this also doesn’t seem to work for me. I write everything down in detail (including a schedule for blog posts), but then I forget to go back to my notebook and I don’t work on my ideas. As you can see, I have made little drawings and notes about jewelry designs or things to write about.

On this page, I tried my new stamps.

This was the sketch for the Latte inspired necklace.

But so far, this hasn’t worked for me. I think the main reason why I don’t like this way of working, is that it doesn’t inspire me. It is just a notebook with pages.

So I decided to put all of my things together, they were lying across my desk anyway, and I cut the images to the right size and inserted them into the photo album. Next to the image, I write down what the idea is about and what creative project I could make out of it. I regrouped the images according to certain themes, for example: colour, mood, pattern, to do list of projects.

Inspiring colours

What I like about this page, are the colours. The image of the coloured meringues comes from the dutch magazine Flow, and the blue paper and pineapple sticker are from Rico Designs.

This page inspires me because of the beautiful, warm and rich colours.

To do: travel souvenirs.

On this insert, I collected a few things. First of all, I cut out an article from Flow magazine that was dedicated to making fun things with the souvenirs you collect during your travels.

The blue image on the bottom is a collage of some photos I took during a minitrip to the sea. During this day out, we collected shells on the beach and I would love to paint them like in the article from the magazine.

Basically, this reminds me of the fact that I have these shells and that I want to make them into an important memory by painting them.

Kitty will help if necessary.

Inspiring patterns.

This page represents a certain mood for me: holiday vibe, travel, freedom. Can you see how some of these pictures might inspire you? It doesn’t necessarily need to be something obvious, like a to do list of creative projects. You can make a collage of beautiful things, and go back every once in a while, and you will get inspired over and over again.

This page is something completely different. I made a piece intended to be a wall art DIY. However, I did not like how it turned out and I did not put it on my wall. That being said, I do like the concept of the free-flowing colours, so I cut the painting into smaller pieces and arranged them in my binder. It’s super pretty. It also goes to show that some of your DIY projects might not work at first, but you can still recycle them into another DIY project.

Below, there is another page dedicated to fun patterns.

The fun part about these inserts, is that you can use them for much more than just paper inserts. I have many failed (or “could-be-better”) jewelry projects. Untill now, I had all of the beads or pieces of jewelry lying around my desk, because the idea is interesting, it is just that the execution could be more refined. So I inserted the beads into the little pockets as well and taped them off. I know what to do with them, but they don’t have to be collecting dust on my desk now.

I’ve grown very fond of my binder. I’m so happy that I have found an inspiring way of keeping all of my beautiful pieces of paper, pictures, ideas and pieces of jewelry together. Mess just doesn’t work for me, and this way of organising my creative ideas feels super. I hope you’ll find an equally satisfying way of getting the best out of your creative ideas!